Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a solar cell assembly and a method of bonding a solar cell component to a flexible support in order to manufacture the solar cell assembly.
Description of the Related Art
A solar cell assembly can be manufactured by bonding a solar cell component to a support. In the solar cell assembly, bonding adhesive is disposed between the solar cell component and the support, in order to bond the solar cell component to the support. In the prior art, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0090661 A1 (Capps et al.) discloses individually encapsulated solar cells and solar cell strings. U.S. Pat. No. 8,107,777 B2 (Farah) discloses a polyimide support bonded on other support. International Application Publication No. WO 2006/108314 A1 (Buechel) discloses a solar cell module and a method of encapsulating the solar cell module.
A bowing phenomenon often occurs in solar cells, especially in large area solar cells. The bowing phenomenon in solar cells means that the top surfaces and the bottom surfaces of the solar cells are not ideally flat. Further, the degrees of the bowing phenomenon may differ among solar cells. In other words, some solar cells may have relatively bigger bow as illustrated in FIG. 1A, while some other solar cells may have relatively smaller bow as illustrated in FIG. 1B. It should be understood that FIGS. 1A and 1B are illustrative and do not denote the real size of the solar cells and the real degrees of bowing. The real degrees of bowing of the solar cells are much lower than those as illustrated by FIGS. 1A and 1B.
The bowing phenomenon can cause the following problem. Specifically, a relatively bigger bow renders a relatively bigger space between a solar cell and a support, and a relatively smaller bow renders a relatively smaller space between a solar cell and a support. When bonding adhesive is disposed between the solar cell and the support in order to bond them together, a relatively larger amount of bonding adhesive can reside in the relatively bigger space between the solar cell with a relatively bigger bow and the support as illustrated in FIG. 1A. However, when bonding adhesive is disposed between the solar cell and the support in order to bond them together, a relatively smaller amount of bonding adhesive can reside in the relatively smaller space between the solar cell with a relatively smaller bow and the support as illustrate in FIG. 1B. In this case, excessive amount of bonding adhesive may flows to the edges. The excess bonding adhesive can flow to the edges, and disadvantageously may further flow away from the edges and contaminate the solar cell and the support.
Thus, a method of bonding a solar cell to a support, in which the bonding adhesive is prevented from flowing away from the edges, is needed in the art.